Perhaps the emos can clear up this bit of cognitive dissonance in their arguments about NSA surveillance.
On the one hand, they tell us that the REAL danger lies in its potential for abuse by an administration.
On the other hand, they tell us that it is hypocritical to have opposed it during a Bush administration (when it was abused) and not oppose it under President Obama (when there is no evidence of abuse).
All I've got to say about it is this: ELECTIONS MATTER!!!
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if you add on one assumption to the set, the dissonance vanishes: that Obama = bush.
ReplyDeleteOf course, the dissonance is removed at the cost of flatly lying.
But if Obama = Bush, does that mean they are suggesting that he is abusing NSA surveillance? I don't think they have even come close to making that argument.
DeleteI think their argument is that he WILL abuse it, because Obama = worse than Bush.
DeleteI think my head just exploded. These emos probably would by now be saying Kucinich is worse than Bush. Or Kucinich would have screwed things up intolerably so they could denounce him for that.
DeleteThat's what happens when you have NO idea how democracy works, and the emos are just as ignorant as the baggers.
I give up - no use talking to any of them.
I'm sorry, but all of you - for whatever reasons - miss the point. The NSA surveillance is ALWAYS at potential for abuse, as long as it is in place with the minimal oversight that exists. Therefore, I did not like it when Bush was President, because I did not trust his administration to not abuse it. Nor do I like it while Obama is President, because while he may not/probably won't/will not (choose whichever formulation you like best) abuse it, the potential REMAINS in place for the next less than trustworthy administration to abuse it. So to me the cognitive dissonance is being against it when you didn't like the Prez, and OK with it when you do like the Prez. Said another way - it is the tool I do not like, because the tool is too open to misuse/abuse.
ReplyDeleteHere's how I see it:
DeleteThere are thousands of tools ANY president can abuse. Do we get rid of them all to protect from abuse? Or do we work our asses off to elect people who won't?
Actually, the answer to that one is surely not 100% either/or. But the idea that we should purge the government of any tool a sociopath might abuse is WAY too weighted on one side of it.
Smarty -- here is another take on where the problem lies. I like Stonekettle's take on all of this....
ReplyDeletehttp://www.stonekettle.com/2013/06/essential-liberty-in-post-911-world.html
Jim made two arguments:
Delete1. Absolute power corrupts absolutely - that's why PBO established both Congressional and Judicial oversight. He basically used the formula given to us for the separation of powers in the Constitution. As I've said before - if you don't trust the President OR Congress OR the Courts, then we have much bigger problems than NSA surveillance.
2. Slippery slope - I've written quite a bit about that one...don't buy it.
Let's cut to the chase and say what's REALLY behind the EmoProg cognitive dissonance. They are white, entitled and privileged. Only they disdain the open racism of the Right, yet they're just as uneasy with a black man in charge. Especially if that black man doesn't fit their utopian idea of a 1960s-style Black Panther radical activist. And that's their racism in a bubble.
ReplyDeleteI say that as a white, LIBERAL, Democratic and SOUTHERN woman. The extreme Left is just as racist as the extreme Right, only more dangerously so. They have the power as well to EMPOWER their Rightwing brethren.
Hmmm .... so I could have sworn I posted a comment to Flaming Emilia that also addressed Smarty's tow points above in response to my link to Stonekettle. Did I not actually hit "post"? Or did they get secretly renditioned off the comment thread? If the former, I'll try to reconstruct. If the latter, then I guess aloha oe.
ReplyDelete